The Double

In the tradition of Ken Follett and Nelson DeMille, The Double: Churchill, Hitler, and the Duel over Rudolf HessJerome Tuccille, whose best-selling biographies of Donald Trump, Alan Greenspan, the Gallo wine clan, and others have earned him wide acclaim, turns his talents here to a World War II espionage thriller concerning one of the most controversial episodes of the war-the crash landing of Rudolf Hess in Scotland. It reads like fiction. But did it really happen?The solo flight of deputy fuehrer Rudolph Hess into Scotland in May, 1941, was one of the more bizarre events of WW II. Was Hess acting on his own or at Hitler's behest? Tuccille (Hemingway and Gellhorn and other books) speculates that Hess has been deputized by the fuehrer, sent on a mission to convince England to cease hostilities in Europe so that Germany can concentrate its forces against the mutually despised Stalinist Russia. The proposal is presented to Winston Churchill, who, of course, has an agenda of his own. The plot draws in Scottish journalist Philip Jacobs (the author's source for the saga), who suspects the British government is concealing a great deal in the Hess affair and who comes perilously close to uncovering the full story. The book is a riveting page-turner, recommended for all audiences.Publishers Weekly